Mining is at least 43,000 years old. The oldest known mine is the “Lion Cave” in Swaziland, which was a haematite mine, used to produce ochre. Mining disasters are still common today, even in these safety-conscious times. Barely a year goes by without hearing of mining disasters in the mines of Bihar and West Bengal in India. Often enough, poor safety records of the mines are to blame. Antiquated equipment and uncertain weather are other causes.

Mining disasters have a sort of grotesque horror associated with them – the womb-like terror of being trapped underground is surely a reasonable phobia, and we can easily picture ourselves in the place of the miners, unlike, for example, other disasters such as shipwrecks or volcanic eruptions, which seem cinematic in description.

Historically, large-scale mine disasters have stirred the fires of reform and provided the impetus for legislation to provide the miner with a safer working place.

Thus, it happened in 1907 when the Fairmont Coal Company’s mine at Monongah, West Virginia exploded killing 362 men and boys. Congress reacted to the disaster at Monongah by passing and toughening mining laws.

In 1910, following a decade in which the number of coal mine fatalities exceeded 2,000 annually, Congress established the Bureau of Mines as a new agency in the Department of the Interior. The Bureau was charged with the responsibility to conduct research and to reduce accidents in the coal mining industry.